KEAL

© Skjalm Arrøe, 2007

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Young Keal

Trouble on the Road

The road seemed to go on and on forever. On both sides the wild forest spread out so thick that it was impossible to see more than a few yards into it. Keal wondered how the road were not overgrown and impossible to use. Perhaps it had something to do with the strange black rocks that had been used to pave them in some distant future no one could remember. Back at the tribe Fredíc had, during his less wicked moments, talked to no one in particular about the history of the forest world they called Lyreth. From what Keal had picked up there had been some kind of dark age where the Human race had been nearly destroyed. Some of this Keal had heard from his guardians back in Porbuyat and at first this had caused Keal to feel very greatful to be alive. As the years passed, especially since his capture by the tribe and “adoption” by Fredíc he found fewer and fewer things to be grateful for. The old man’s mumblings had not often been all that understandable so the few pieces of information Keal did manage to pick up were scattered and most of it did ot make a lot of sense. As far as he could make out the dark age had been caused by some catastrophe of some sort, the nature of which was lost in the mists of history. Across the known world, mainly in the larger towns and cities, old pieces of machinery had survived old age and some of them were still working though no one really knew how their internals functioned.

From his early childhood back in Porbuyat he could remember the large, greasy chimneys that spewed endless plumes of pitch black smoke towards the sky. Unfortunately, his guardians had set off with one of the caravans before Keal was old enough to learn more about how the world worked. And his years with the tribe that had murdered his guardians had seemed to neither know nor care about these things.

That was one thing Keal hoped would change now that he was away from those horrible people. Deep inside him there still burned a desire to learn things, to do more than simply worry about where his next meal should come from. He shifted the small back pack and spicked up his pace. Even though he had no idea where he was headed and when, if ever, he would come across other people in this great forest he felt as a bird that had one day found the door in its cage open. Fredíc was dead, he thought, and that small thing made all the difference to Keal.

As he walked on darker thoughts entered his mind. He was reminded of the strange apparition he had seen in his tent, or had he been somewhere else?

There still had not been time for him to really think much about what had happened back in the camp. Everything had been so confusing after Fredíc’s death with the others in the tribe going through their belongings not caring which were Fredíc’s and which were Keal’s. At the end of it he had found himself pushed out of the tribe without much of value to take with him. It was only by sheer luck the tribesmen had not found the small stash of bread and cheese Keal had gotten into the habit of collecting. He never knew when Fredíc would give him food so whenever he had had the chance he had tried to hide away that which he did not need right at the moment. Sometimes he had even managed to pilfer some from Fredíc’s wagon when the old man had either fallen asleep early or been too busy grumbling in a corner to notice.

But the apparition. Keal tried to remember what it had said. Here in the daylight it all seemed very unreal. Like it had happened to someone else in another world. A part of him kept telling him that this was so even though he could not shake the memory from his mind. Now that he began to work it over in his head a lot of details started coming back to him. With a shiver he remembered the moment he had recognised the God of Bad Luck. For a while he had managed to forget that distressing detail along with the coin the god had placed in him. His hand unconsciously moved to his wrist feeling for the coin. Keal let out a small sigh of relief when he could not feel it. Perhaps it really had been a dream of some kind after all. He truly hoped it had. From what he remembered of the old tales his guardians had recited to him Jinx was not someone you wanted to be marked by. Not if you had any sensible bone in your body.

Lost in his thoughts Keal did not notice the tipped over wagon at the side of the road until he was almost next to it. With a jerk he stopped and looked around. No one was around so he walked closer to the wagon to see what had happened to it. At first it looked like it had simply tipped over and been left by its owner, but when he took a closer look at the seat he could see dried blood on the side hidden by the tall grass. Upon closer examination he saw that it was not merely a few drops but a very large smear spattering most of the side of the wagon and part of the seat. It was almost as if someone had been crushed by the wagon and dragged along for a while. Feeling nervous he glanced around once more for signs that the owner, or worse, whoever had been the cause of this. Still there were no signs of anyone else but him so he proceeded to take a look inside the wagon.

The first thing that struck him when he pulled back the canvas covering the back of the wagon was the stench. It felt like a hard punch directly to his nose and he recoiled from the reek with a gasp. After the initial shock his stomach caught up with what was going on and lurched making Keal vomit violently into the grass. For a while he just lay there on his knees puking his guts out while the calm wind cleared the worst of the smell away from the wagon’s interior.

Getting up on shaking legs Keal covered his mouth with his hand and looked once more into the wagon to see what caused the stench. A horrific sight met him: two hacked up bodies had been thrown inside the wagon, obviously after it had been tipped over. The damp air of the forest, helped by all kinds of crawling insects, had rotted the flesh of the bodies and left them dripping foul looking and smelling goo onto the canvas. Even as Keal watched a large piece of flesh fell off what had once been an arm and landed with a sickening sound among similar pieces of flesh. Where the piece of flesh had been Keal could see maggots and worms crawling around surprised that their meal had suddenly been taken from them.

Again Keal’s bowels upended themselves and he staggered away from the scene. Whatever was left inside the wagon would be covered in blood and pieces of rotted flesh and Keal had no intentions of even looking at it again to see if he could find anything useful. Coughing he walked back onto the road and started stumbling onward.

As the foul stench cleared from his nostrils and the distance to the wagon increased he thought about what might have happened. Memories from the assault on his guardians’ caravan leapt into his mind sending shivers down his spine. The forest that such a short time ago had been filled with promises of freedom and life away from the abuse of the tribe suddenly took on a sinister atmosphere. The quiet rustling of the leaves turned into hushed whispers of trees who had witnessed the brutality of Humans. Even the chirping of the birds now sounded more like warning calls than music to Keal. And the wind drifting up from behind him still held traces, or so he imagined, of the rotted corpses. He pulled his thin cloak tighter about him and increased his speed, one simple goal on his mind: to get as far away from the wagon as possible.

The rest of the day and quite a while into the night he kept pushing on as hard as he could and when he finally crawled a short distance into the forest to hide for the night he did not get much sleep. Throughout the night he was haunted by nightmares of what might have happened to the people in the wagon. The more he thought about it the less sense it all made to him. He could not understand who would have gone through all the trouble of flipping over the wagon, killing and dismembering whoever those two people had been and then stuffing the body parts back into the wagon and closing the canvas cover. It was not as if the wagon had been hidden so the bodies would soon have been found no matter what. A slight trembling went through him every time his mind went back to the horrific scene. Lying in the darkness he wished he had at least attempted to see if there had been any tracks leading away from the wagon. If he had found any he might have had an idea of whether he was travelling towards or away from whoever had done this. Every few minutes he would be startled by the tiniest of sounds in the dark forest. Even though he was used to the night time sounds every rustling leaf, every crawling rodent, every bird’s call would jerk him back awake until he finally collapsed into troubled sleep not long before dawn.

While he was sleeping a figure slid quietly through the trees surrounding Keal’s small hideout. The grey shadow walked to within a pace of the sleeping boy and looked down on him. When it seemed like Keal had not been disturbed the figure knealt down and gently touched his wrist while whispering softly.

“I may not be able to undo my brother’s curse completely, but it can be kept at bay. Though you may not like the price.”

The rest of the night the figure kept sitting crouched by Keal’s side watching as his sleep calmed and his breathing slowed to a steady rythm. As the singing of birds heraled the coming of dawn the creature rose silently and slipped back into the forest. As soon as it had withdrawn completely of out sight Keal sat up with a sharp intake of breath. His head spinning he dropped down on his back trying to get his bearings. Images from the day before still danced in his mind, but they now seemed a little distant making the scene seem more like something out of a nightmare than from reality. Sitting up again he listened to the forest’s sounds and now found them soothing. Where the darkness of night had turned the scuttling of animals into approaching madmen they now seemed to indicate that everything was in order and that life went on as always.

Slowly he got up and roumaged through his meager belongings for something to eat. There was still a few loaves of bread and some cheese left so he ate some of it and saved a little for later. It was not much and he would most likely have to start scavenging for edibles in the forest. Judging from the number of small animals he could hear there should be a plentitude of roots and nuts, probably also some berries. Packing away the rest of the food he went back out to the road pausing only to make sure no one was nearby when he left the treeline. The day seemed better than yesterday. His feeling of freedom had returned as it dawned on him that he had just spent his first night as a completely free man. Yes, he would have to scrape by on what he could find in the forest. And yes, he had no real idea of where he was or where he was headed. But he was free. He could make his own choices.

Both the day and the miles went quickly and in the late afternoon he began thinking about finding somewhere to rest for the night and gather a little food. He looked from one side of the road to the other trying to decide which side he should go into. Again a small smile spread on his lips as he felt butterflies flittering around in his stomach. As strange as the feeling was it was still a small thing to be able to choose to go left or right and when he became conscious of just how ridiculous it really was he gave a small laugh and headed off to his left in the direction of the slowly setting sun. Just as he had hoped he soon had a small collection of berries, roots and nuts and he sat down cross legged in a small clearing near a slow flowing stream he had also found. The fresh food and clear water filled his stomach nicely and before the sun set completely he had crawled off to hide behind some bushes and fell asleep. If he had any dreams he could not remember them. So sound did he sleep that a squirrel had crept close to steal a couple of the nuts he had carelessly left wrapped up in a small piece of cloth next to him.

When he woke up the squirrel was startled away and for a while Keal blinked his eyes and looked around with a puzzled look on his face trying to figure out who was making angry chirping noises at him. Yawning heartily he walked down to the stream and splashed a little water in his face to clear the sleep out of his eyes. He then went back and ate the rest of his bread and cheese. Looking at the empty pieces of cloth that had held his small supply of food his heart sank a little. It would be long before he would eat this well and with a sigh he packed his bag and went down to the stream for a little drink of water.

He sat down and bent forward to scoop up some water in his hands and was just about to start drinking when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone moving on the other side of the stream. He pretended not to notice as he tried to follow the movements and see if he could see more of the person without giving away that he was aware he was not alone. As it turned out he had not needed to worry for only seconds later he heard a frail, but deep, voice.

“Good morning, lad,” the voice said, “you seem far from home.”

It was not so much a question as a statement of fact. Keal slowly rose and took his time looking at the stranger before answering. On the other side of the stream stood an old man dressed in loose, white breeches and a dark blue tunic that looked like it had seen better days. The man was leaning a little on a long walking stick and as he took a half step towards the stream Keal noticed that the stick was probably necessary as the man seemed to limp slightly on his right leg. With what he hoped was a strong, yet non-hostile, look Keal looked straight into the man’s kind eyes and spoke warily.

“Indeed, sir. Something we have in common.”

At this the old man chuckled warmly and nodded so vigoursly that his wild beard and grey, curled hair bounced around on his head.

“Indeed, lad, indeed. But tell me, could you please give me a hand across the stream? It is not deep, but my legs are not as steady as they have been.”

The old man took the last step down to the brink of the stream and held out his hand apparently expecting Keal to help him. The thin, almost bony, hand felt oddly warm in Keal’s own hand as he indeed did help the old man. Even though he somehow felt he should be careful around strangers the old man just did not seem threateningly in any way. And besides, the years in Fredíc’s service had sharpened his reflexes so if the old man did attempt some kind of foul play Keal would have a good chance to jump clear.

But the old man did not attempt anything other than cross the stream clutching Keal’s hand and lower arm for support. When he was across he took a respectful step away from Keal, as much for his own safety as for Keal’s. For a few moments they stood looking at each other until Keal finally broke the silence if for no other reason than because he was used to being a servant and it felt odd to him to not be respectful to his elders.

“I’d offer you a bite of bread, old man,” he said, “but I’m all out so…”

He shrugged.

“Then allow me,” the old man replied. “I have the good fortune of a small appetite this late in my life and it’s the least I can do after you helping me.”

Keal supposed there was some truth to this and gladly accepted a small, hard biscuit the old man pulled out of a small sack hanging from his shoulder. The biscuit was very dry, but combined with a drink of water from the stream it felt like it expanded generously in his stomach and he leaned back against a tree wondering if he would ever be able to eat anything again. As he padded his belly the old man chuckled again.

“Such appetite, lad. Normally a single trail biscuit will keep a grown man from hunger for a day’s time.”

Lifting an eyebrow at the mention of this Keal reassessed his impression of the old man. He might be frail, but anyone who had the rare trail biscuits that were said to only be produced somewhere Keal could not remember could not be a simple traveller or beggar. Now that they were a little closer Keal could also see very faint runes carved into the old man’s staff. Noticing his gaze the old man spoke again.

“Ah, lad, where are my manners?”

He gave a small smile and a nod to Keal.

“I am Father Metobaph, a wanderer from a faraway monastery. Who do I have to thank for my dry feet today?”

“Name’s Keal, old man. Not really from anywhere. Definitely wandering, though.”

Keal was not sure precisely what a monastery was nor why the old man would think it important to let him know he had children. Metobaph had an air of kindness around him, though, so he decided to be a little trusting.

“Until recently I was a servant, or slave really, but when my master died I was cast out of the tribe he was in.”

“One of the tribes, eh? That can be a harsh life.”

The old man spoke very softly and nodded knowingly as Keal’s hand unconsciously rubbed the lingering remains of a bruise Fredíc had given him not three days ago.

“Where are you off to then, Keal, now that you are on your own?”

Keal just shrugged.

“Undecided? Well, if you stick to the road you should come to a small settlement in a day or two. It’s a bit off the road, but there’s a small path up to a large clearing in the forest where they’re trying to keep some farms alive. I’m sure they could use a spare set of hands. Mind you, it might be harsher than it was in the tribe.”

“Hardly,” said Keal, “I wasn’t exactly a valued member of the tribe.”

For a brief moment Keal thought back on how one of the tribe’s elders had those exact words, “not a valued member”, one day. Even though the elder’s back had been turned he must have known Keal was standing nearby or else he would not have raised his voice just a little bit when he said it. A bitter smile crept unto his lips. Sometimes he thought the only reason he, and Fredíc for that matter, had not been thrown out of the tribe sooner was that his old master must have once held some kind of respect that had not waned so much that he had been thrown out. It definitely had not seemed like the tribe’s elders had been much fonder of Fredíc than they were of Keal.

“Definitely can’t be harsher than the tribe. But what’s this monastery place you come from?”

“A place far from here where some of my brethren live peaceful lives working on their souls as well as the soil.”

As the day got started they sat at the stream talking a little. The old man did not seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere and Keal found that the prospect of soon being among another tribe, even if they were farmers, was not to his liking. And after a short while Metobaph drifted from the here and now to other stories either about his travels or what seemed like the stories that were told around the camp fires until late at night. A while before noon the old man clapped his hand and rose to his feet, helped by his staff.

“Well, can’t sit around here all day, can we?”

The joviality in his voice infected Keal and he found himself jumping to his feet as well. He opened his mouth to ask Metobaph about something, but closed it again. Then he opened again and asked, slightly too hurried for his own liking, if he could join the old man.

“Out for more biscuits, eh? Oh, come now, don’t look so startled. It’s only natural to be on the lookout for food. But I’m only jesting. Of course you’re welcome to join me. Who knows what other mighty rivers need crossing?”

The last question was asked with a wink of the eye and Keal could not help laughing. A slow stream that could be crossed with a long stride could hardly be called a mighty river. Or maybe it could. Keal’s laughter stopped as he reflected upon how easily he could have jumped across but how difficult it would have been for Metobaph to cross it on his own without stepping in. His musings did not go unnoticed by the old man.

“Glad to see they didn’t knock your brain completely loose, lad,” he said softly, “now lead on and let us get back on the road. We can skip the farmers if you don’t feel like it.”

And so Keal led the old man out of the tangled forest and onto the paved road leading to their futures.

Finally Some Gods

Late at night, a week or so after they had met, Keal and Metobaph set up camp in a small clearing in the forest. The clearing was safely hidden away from the road by a small ridge with dense bushes. Earlier that day they had been fortunate enough to come across a group of travelling merchants that had traded them some meat and cheese in exchange for Metobaph helping one of them who had injured his arm in an accident. Keal had looked on with a morbid fascination as Metobaph had cut open the man’s arm to remove a couple of splinters that had broken off from the bone. It had taken all four of the other merchants to hold the struggling man down, but eventually Metobaph had finished his bloody work and splinted and bandaged the arm.

The merchants had been very grateful and had even asked if they would like to join them as they were headed towards Porbuyat hoping to sell their wares. Before Keal could even begin to voice his objections Metobaph had kindly declined the invitation claiming that they were heading in the opposite direction. While it was actually the truth Metobaph had never actually mentioned any specific destination so Keal had been left wondering if the old man really was just travelling aimlessly or if there was some kind of other purpose with his journey. As they shared some of the meat for dinner he decided to ask.

“Meto, why did you tell the merchant that we were headed in the opposite direction? I mean, I don’t mind. Wouldn’t want to go to the city now. It’s just that I’m thinking you may actually have a destination in mind.”

A sad smile crept onto the old man’s face as he sighed and replied.

“Yes, there actually is a destination. Not one I look forward to, but eventually all journeys must end.”

Keal said nothing and waited patiently for the old man to continue. Throughout the last week he had come to recognise the distant look in Metobaph’s eyes. He would get it whenever he talked about the monastery where he had apparently spent the better part of his life. Once more Metobaph got that far away look in his eyes and his voice seemed very sad when he continued.

“I have put off my return to the monastery for over a year now. You might as well know this as there may not be a lot of time for explanations once we get there.

“Before I left I held the position of, well, the title will mean nothing to you. Suffice it to say that it was fairly high up in our hierarchy. You see, the order I belong to, the Order of Peace, may both preach and believe in equality and treating people alike. But as always some kind of structure seems to be necessary. And so it is that we eventually created different levels of influence, power really, within the order.”

“Yes,” said Keal, “I remember you telling me about how the monks, they’re called monks, right, how the monks would have different roles and areas of responsibility.”

“Indeed. That is, however, only sharing the combined responsibility in order to make sure things are actually done. It’s a bit like when you collect wood for the fire while I clear the ground of stones and dig a small pit for the fire. Neither task is more important than the other but both should be done and it makes sense to split the tasks. The hierachy within the order started based on the teachings. Back in the beginning of our days it made a lot of sense to simply let the most knowledgable, or at least oldest, member of the order be responsible for teaching the younger. The order grew in size and so more ‘levels’ were created and over the years these levels got titles and eventually they became positions of power rather than indications of teachings.”

This seemed somewhat familiar to Keal. In the tribe he had grown up in there had been similar positions with the tribe’s leader at the top and a handful of people who were responsible for the different aspects of daily life. Yet something still confused him.

“Don’t they teach anymore, then?”

“Some do, some don’t,” Metobaph answered. “It depends a lot on the position. And the individual, I guess.”

He sighed.

“The original idea behind the order was far different and I must admit that I’m not entirely pleased with the way things are now. Hence the delay in returning to the monastery. It’s been several years since I was there and I fear I may not get an overly warm welcome.”

“Then why are you going back?”

“Because of my vows, lad, because of my vows. Whatever I may think and feel about the order I do not have it in me to abandon the vows and promises I made to myself and our god. The Supreme is distant from this world, yes, but he’s still very much alive inside us. In our souls.”

Keal raised an eye brow at this. It was the first time Metobaph had mentioned anything specific about the gods. Most of the time he seemed to merely speak of daily things or, to Keal’s confusion, about the soul he claimed everyone has. According to the things Keal knew about the gods you would indeed pass on to another realm when you died, but the way his guardians had taught it it had seemed to Keal as if he, himself, would pass on. Not some mysterious, invisible thing living inside him. And now Metobaph mentioned this Supreme god. Keal had ever heard about this god before and was not entirely sure he really wanted to know about more gods. He shivered as memories of Jinx returned to him and, following it, the horrific sight of the mutilated bodies in the wagon.

“I don’t know much about gods,” he said, “except the, erm, stories about how they choose people to aid them in their goals. That doesn’t seem too distant to me.”

“Ah, you’re thinking of the old gods, then.”

Metobaph sat watching Keal for a moment. It was plain that Keal felt uncomfortable about the direction the discussion was headed which intrigued him. Normally, Keal had a very well balanced mix between wanting to know more and not wanting to ask too many questions. This particular topic was different. It was almost as if Keal neither wanted to know more or even talk about it. He decided to abandon the topic of gods and take their discussion in another direction.

“Have you thought more about where you might be headed in the future?” he asked.

“Not really,” Keal admitted. “It seems strange to think about these things. It’s not more than a week ago that I was in the tribe. Now it seems like everything is possible. And yet nothing really does seem possible. I mean, sure, perhaps a farm would take me in. Or perhaps we’ll come across another group of merchants that might have some need for me to, I don’t know, carry their stuff or whatever.

It just doesn’t seem like an improvement over life in the tribe. There I at least knew where my next meal would come from. Even if it wasn’t a very large meal.”

They both grew silent for a while. The sun had set and darkness was settling rapidly over the forest as the small fire crackled lustily. Keal dragged his blanket up around his shoulders to ward off the cold. The evening’s talk of gods had forced more than just the images and memories to his mind. He could not even begin to understand why Jinx had appeared before him. What he could do was accept it. Absently he rubbed his wrist where the coin had entered his body. It felt like it was still there. Hiding just beyond his touch. Taking a deep breath he looked Metobaph directly in the eyes.

“Do you believe the gods walk the earth?” he asked.

It looked like Metobaph was just about to say something. He shifted his gaze from Keal to the fire and sat contemplating the question for a while before answering.

“I believe there are things in this world we might call gods. But I also believe that there is only one entity, the Supreme, that truly is a god. Sadly, not many seem to agree on this.”

“But you do believe the gods, the ones you call the old gods, are here? In this world?”

Seeing at the eager look on Keal’s face it was Metobaph’s turn to feel a little uncomfortable.

“What are you really asking me, lad?” he asked.

“It’s just…” he began, but did not know how to start explaining his meeting with Jinx. Half the time he himself did not believe, or at least would not believe it, so how could he expect a stranger to believe his fantastic tale.

“Never mind,” he mumbled, “I’m just tired tonight. I think I’ll go to sleep now.”

With those words he lay down on his side and rolled his blanket around him. He had no idea how long it took before sleep finally found him and the minutes or hours before it did was filled with the all too familiar images of Jinx, the wagon and Fredíc.

Metobaph sat watching the boy tossing and turning in his sleep. Over the past couple of days he had noticed that the boy had an interesting knack of being able to fall asleep almost the minute he lay down. Or maybe sleep was not the correct term. Keal’s body was indeed sleeping, but his mind was still very much awake although it seemed to be somewhere else. With a small sigh he said a prayer under his breath and smiled sadly as he saw Keal find something resembling a peaceful sleep. It would not leave him as well rested as a real sleep for even though Metobaph had indeed studied long and hard when he was younger he had never learned the finer points of how to take enough of the Supreme’s power into his own being to be able to do more than just prodding the world into a slightly different place than where it had been only moments before. As least the sleep Metobaph could offer must be better than the nightmare ridden dreams Keal seemed to have every night.

Settling back into his own blanket he gazed into the small fire and listened to the sounds of the night. After a few minutes he could begin to feel the gentle touch of the headaches using the Supreme’s power always instilled in him.

“Another sleepless night,” he mumbled and put another branch on the fire. He nearly jumped out of his seat when a quiet voice answered him.

“At least tonight you’ll have a little company, old man,” the voice said.

Metobaph turned his head towards the voice. It had come from the edge of the trees around the clearing they had camped in. Squinting to see better in the dark he slowly began to make out a figure leaning against one of the trees.

“Mind if I join you?”

Gesturing at the fire to indicate his accept Metobaph tried to get a better look as the figure approached and entered the flickering light of the fire. A young, bearded man dressed in dark grey clothes sat down next to him. His clothes were a clean, deep grey colour rather than the faded greyish colour of worn clothes. After seating himself he pulled out a small, slim pipe and used a branch from the fire to light it. In the light from the fire Metobaph recognised a face he had not seen in ages.

“You!” he said accusingly. “Cursed Luck! What are you doing here?”

“Just keeping an eye on young Keal here,” Jinx said. “He’s got a long road ahead of him.”

“Hrmph! Not if you’re standing at the side.”

“You of all people should know that there are far worse situations to be in than to be dead. No, Keal need not worry about dying. What he needs to worry about is that he is alive. And will be far longer than what he’ll want to.”

While speaking Jinx’ appearance changed gradually between several different bodies one face flowing gently into another. When next it spoke its face had settled back into that of a young man.

“I know you don’t believe me, Meto, but I am doing my best to keep Keal safe. It’s just, ah, you know how it is. However little sense it makes even gods don’t always have much choice in these matters.”

“Gods? Pah! You know my views on that matter, you oversized spirit!”

The otherwise calm old man looked at Jinx with a steely gaze. His mouth had retracted to a thin line and Jinx visibly shrank back from him. Metobaph held his gaze on Jinx for a few heartbeats before letting his face returned to his normal lines with a short harumph.

“I guess I should take some solace/pleasure in the fact that at least one of you young upstarts recognise actual power when you face it,” he said.

Jinx just shrugged not wanting to either admit it was afraid of Metobaph. Or rather, that it was afraid of the old man’s god. There had been many discussions in the Grand Halls about whether this new power that had emerged over the last centuries really was as old as it claimed or if it was just an attempt at a rapid rise to power by making the other gods too afraid to oppose it. As usual Jinx had stayed out of these discussions as it was all to clear to the God of Misfortune that it might also have a shot at the title of God of Confusion since it never could make up its mind about whether this Supreme, be it a real god or just a powerful spirit or dragon, was what it said or not. Most of the other gods quite simply refused to believe that there could be anyone more powerful than them. Being less than popular with the other gods Jinx was probably the one of them who had spent the most time in the mortal realms and this had given it a lot of opportunities to see what the effects of all the gods, spirits and dragons. And most importantly, the effects of the Supreme and its followers.

Despite never feeling cold or warm Jinx nevertheless pulled its jacket tighter around itself. Over the years it had crossed the path of several people following the Supreme and all of them had had something special about them. It was not arrogance or the selfassuredness that naturally followed extreme power. Casting a sideway glance at Metobaph it was once more struck by how different this human seemed. He had some of the same confidence about him as the other followers of the Supreme had had. Strangely enough Metobaph had less of it than some of the others. There was something else that made Jinx more worried and sometimes even downright afraid. Until this moment Jinx had been unable to define precisely what it was. But when Metobaph had looked it straight into the eye it had really seemed like the old man’s gaze could have killed even a god if he had wanted it to. That was when Jinx had known what it was that made Metobaph different from the others. He possessed within him a raw power whose strength Jinx could not even begin to guess at. And that was not even what scared Jinx the most. The truly frightening part was that Metobaph seemed to both understand and control that power. Jinx shivered and shifted his gaze to the fire hoping to escape a line of thinking that could only lead to one conclusion: that the Supreme was, in fact, completely accurately named.

“Why did you take an interest in Keal?” Metobaph asked.

The question startled Jinx out of its thoughts. It was almost as if the old man was trying to help him think about something else. As this thought struck Jinx it shivered again but decided to take the oustretched hand leading away from its thoughts. Even if the mere fact that that hand was there could be seen as proof that Jinx’ fears were justified.

“It all began a while back when Keal was still too young to really be aware of what went on around him. He was always getting into trouble, even back then.”

Jinx smiled at some unmentioned memory.

“His guardians had taken him in after his parents had been killed in an accident at the machinery they worked in,” it continued. “This is not in itself anything extraordinary since these accidents happen on a daily basis. Oh, they rarely have fatal consequences, but it’s happened often enough. To be honest I think the foreman was more concerned about the knowledge lost that the people.”

“You were there?” Metobaph asked.

“Ah… yes. I was. Let’s just leave it at that.”

A particularly guilty look crossed Jinx’ face. Metobaph waved his hand as if to dismiss his comment and Jinx continued.

“No, his parents’ deaths were not what drew me to Keal. It was that he was with them when it happened.”

At this Metobaph raised both eyebrows.

“You mean, he was somewhere nearby? I understand that some of the machineries are realistic enough to use some spare space, if they have it, for the children of the more important workers. Probably hope this will keep them working longer and get the the children started in the sweat shops as soon as possible.”

“No, no. When I said that he was with them I mean just that. He. Was. With. Them.”

As they spoke Jinx’ features had changed into that of a sad young woman.

“Apparently some of the kids had found it funny to see who of them was best at escaping from the section they were in. Not an easy task given the number of people looking after them and that they were physically locked away from the actual machinery to avoid them doing just what they did.

Anyways, it turned out that even at the age of three or four, I can’t remember, Keal was already very proficient at escaping notice and he succeeded where even some of the older kids had failed. Unfortunately, he did not possess anything resembling good sense which probably isn’t all that surprising, I guess. So he ran off to show his parents how good he had been at the game he was playing with the other children.”

“He didn’t just ‘escape’ from the play house but actually managed it all the way into the machinery? Or did his parents work outside it?”

“His parents were boiler mechanics. They were working on fixing some of the valves/ventiler that were meant to release the boiler’s pressure if it got too high. Long story short, the boiler ruptured literally boiling his parents and several others on the spot. And it happened just as Keal had reached them.”

For a few moments they both stared silently at nothing, Jinx reliving the memory, Metobaph taking in the enormity of what he had just heard. He had never been into the innards of the machineries, but knew that a boiler would at least have held several hundred liters water. Boiling and under pressure making a rupture into something between a small explosion and a deadly warm steam bath. No one within several meters of the boiler should have been able to survive the rupture itself and anyone in the same room would likely have suffered severe burns most of them probably fatal as well.

“How many died in the accident?”

“Apart from Keal’s parents? Four were killed on the spot, a few more died of their injuries afterwards. Not Keal though. Once the wreckage was cleared away they found him standing next to what people guessed must have been his parents. The poor soul was crying his heart out but was otherwise unharmed. The crew guessed he had somehow run into the wreckage after the explosion in search of his parents and recognised their clothes or something.”

Jinx shook its head. It had been in the room, unseen, above the boiler when it ruptured and nearly took the entire building with it. This particular boiler had been a remake of one of the large subterranean machines left over from the time before the Weapon went off and was therefore in a wooden building near the docks. If the boiler had been the same size as the original the accident would definitely have levelled the building and done serious damage to the neighbouring warehouses.

Another few moments of silence passed, Jinx’ quiet nodding confirming Metobaph’s unvoiced question as to whether the god had seen the accident with its own eyes or not.

“Did you see what saved him?”

“Nothing did. At least nothing I could see or sense. And it happened despite me being within twenty meters of him. That in itself should have caused all manner of bad luck for him.”

“As opposed to the joy of having his parents killed right before his eyes?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that somehow he made it through the accident unharmed so yeah, I suppose something must have saved him. But what?”

Jinx hestitated before asking a question that in itself could call down the wrath of virtually every other god in existence if they knew he had asked it to a follower of the Supreme.

“Could it have been… your god?”

Metobaph sighed and poked the fire for a while.

“Difficult to say. It’s unlike Him to spare someone death only to live through the horror the experience must have instilled in Keal. But then again, maybe He has some unknown plan for the boy. Even the oldest and wisest of his followers dare not even guess at what He’s planning.”

This time it was Jinx’ turn to give a small snort of amusement.

“So you’re all running around after some guy none of you have seen and none of you know what his plans are or what he’s doing and what he isn’t?”

Even as the words left Jinx’ mouth the god regretted saying them. Again he shrank back from Metobaph’s gaze this time not because of the power hidden in the man, but because of the anger that flashed in his eyes. In an unusually moment of strength Jinx managed to look Metobaph straight in the eye and it forced its appearance into that of the young, bearded man again.

“What? Isn’t that what you do?” it sneered.

“Begone, you foul creature!” Metobaph shouted. “How dare you come here like some scavenger picking on whatever’s left of this poor boy? How dare you insult the Supreme? I know of some of the things you’ve seen, you pathetic excuse for a dead worm’s ethereal excrements! Those things should prove to you beyond a doubt that you and the other selfproclaimed gods are worthless leeches sucking on the souls of humanity!”

“Keep your voice down, you old cripple,” Jinx spat out. “Or you poor, helpless boy, who, I might remind you, called upon us spiritual shits to kill a man less than the passing of a moon ago, wakes up!”

“Pah! Keal will sleep soundly throughout the night, aided by the power of the Supreme. Not drugged up like what happens when one of your kind tries to ‘help’ humans by forcing them unconscious.”

Jinx was about to reply angrily, but Metobaph reached out to grab his walking stick and stabbed it at the god. Just as the stick was about to touch Jinx the god disappeared and the stick only stabbed at the empty air. Metobaph cursed the gods and all their foul doings to all their own false netherworlds and back. As he did this Keal’s sleep became troubled once more and the old man forced himself to be calm. Knowing Keal needed the sleep more than himself he settled into a traditional cross legged position of his order’s meditations and crossed his hands in his lap. He took a deep breath and prepared for a night of prayer and meditation to help Keal through his nightmares.

The Monastery

Slowly but steadily the weeks passed as Keal and Metobaph travelled together. Since there were not many roads through the forests they rarely had to choose which way they were going. Gradually their lives settled into a quiet routine of walking most of the day and then gathering food and firewood, sometmes even hunting a little for rabbits. Most of the time they did not speak much. This suited both of them quite well. Keal obviously needed to make a lot of things settle in his mind and everytime he and the old man did talk his mind seemed to be filled up with new questions and thoughts. The long walks gave him ample time to sift through what had happened back in the tribe and as time passed he came to terms with the fact that he quite simply had seen something that night in the tent. During one of his talks with Metobaph the old man seemed very pleased when Keal had stumblingly come up with the theory that yes, something had manifested itself in front of him, but no, he did not know what it was. It could just as easily be the God of Misfortune as it could be something entirely different.

“I guess the only thing I’m really sure of,” he had said one day, “is that whatever it was was something beyond this physical world.”

At this Metobaph had smiled his quiet, content smile and simply nodded.

The more time Keal spent with the old man the more he came to like his company. Even, or perhaps especially, when they were just walking on the roads or sitting silently at the fire in the evening. It was the first time in his life he had ever simply been in the presence of someone else without being ordered around, told stories or somehow else being involved in some way. Now he was simply enjoying the feeling of sitting at night, leaned back against a tree, knowing he was not alone. That there was someone who accepted him as who he was without trying to force him to change. It was a very sharp contrast to Fredíc’s abuse. During these weeks his dreams also settled down and the memories from his grizzly encounter of the mutilated bodies turned into vague images that no longer caused nightmares or chills. In short, Keal was simply enjoying life and he found himself taking more and more interest in what the future might bring. It was not easy for him to think that far ahead as he had not really known any other life than what he had had back with the tribe so there seemed to be an infinite number of options, possibilities.

One day, sitting in the last rays from the setting sun, he found himself especially well rested and relaxed. They had made good progress that week and a few days earlier they had emerged from the forest to find themselves at the edge of a wide plain leading to some cloud covered mountains in the horizon. The sudden change from the illusion of shelter in the thick forest to the openness of the plain had started a lot of thoughts in him and as they made their way across the plain he had come to realise that he was beginning to be aware of what he wanted to do, at least in the immediate future. So as he and Metobaph relaxed in the fading light with full stomachs he broached a topic he had been thinking a lot about for some time.

“Remember a few days ago when you told me that story about how one of the old monks had tried to build a large rainwater tank that had collapsed giving everyone nearby a very improvised and cold bath?”

“Huh? Oh, haha, yes. That was great fun. No matter how hard we all tried we couldn’t help laughing. At first there was the slight shock and worry that someone might have gotten hurt. But still, the sight of the head monk standing there in his drenched robes not knowing if he should explode with fury or just shiver from the cold… ah, yes. Those were good times.”

The old man sighed and gazed at the mountains while this and other pleasant memories from his life at the monastery played themselves out in his head.

“I was thinking,” Keal continued, “you’ve mentioned a few times that it’s been long since you’ve been back there. And. I don’t know. From what you’ve told me it seems like a good life. Sure, there’s hard work, I guess. But I figure I’d find that no matter where I end up. So I was wondering… if you did return there at some point do you think I could go with you?”

With a slow sigh and a gentle smile Metobaph closed his eyes and thought for a few moments before answering. Keal could not remember ever feeling so nervous in his entire life. It was not fear or worry that was making his stomach flutter like a field of butterflies. Anticipation, excitement and hope. Those feelings he had not known for most of his life were swelling inside him as he had finally found it in himself to ask that question. In a brief moment of clarity he realised that it was the first time in years that he had so directly asked a favour of anyone without trying to make himself as small and subdued as possible. Should Metobaph decide against it and say no Keal was sure he would simply do so calmly without any kind of punishment. Actually, he thought, the worst that might happen would be that he would be allowed to go to the monastery. He sat reflecting a little on the warmth he felt inside at he noticed that the worst that could happen was still very much a good thing until Metobaph cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter.

“You know I neither can nor will stop you from going whereever you want. That is one of the important things about how we live our lives at the monastery. This does not mean that anyone is completely free to do anything she pleases. What it means is that each and every one of us carry the responsibility to respect other people’s rights and wills. As easy as it may sound I can promise you that working twelve hours on a farm with no breaks every day for the rest of your life is likely to be easier. Far easier. However, if you do choose this you will change in far different ways from what you are likely to do at a farm. So it is really not a matter of whether I let you come or not. It’s a matter of whether you let yourself go or not.”

If Keal had heard this before meeting Metobaph he would quite likely just have shrugged it off as the ramblings of an old man. Now he did not. Instead he thought it over for a few moments before giving his reply. He let the words settle for a while and swirled them around in his mind trying to see not only the words and their meanings but also what was hidden between them. In the end, he realised, the simple fact that he was considering the words so carefully was more of an answer than what he might come up with in direct reply to Metobaph’s indirect question. Still, he had come to like the small, verbal “battles” they had had together so far so he felt some kind of reply other than a simple yes or no was in order. With a short laugh he looked at the old man with a half smile on his face.

“It’s not a matter of me letting myself go. Probably more of a problem if I can stop myself from going, really.”

The smile that spread on the old man’s face was everything Keal needed to know that there had not been a right or wrong answer to Metobaph’s question. That there had not, in fact, been an actual question. This was the thing that had changed Keal’s way of thinking the most, the old man’s ability to not ask specific questions but give comments that made Keal ask them himself. As confused as this had often left him it was also something he had greatly come to appreciate because the act of thinking for himself and drawing his own conclusions were worth far more than anything he had ever been taught about the gods, life, cooking or anything else. For a split second it felt as his heart had stopped. The past weeks of freedom and his thoughts about the future suddenly seemed to pale against the freedom his mind had just created inside himself.

During breakfast the next morning Metobaph pointed towards the mountains and winked.

“Now isn’t it just a strange coincidence that those are actually the mountains where the monastery lies?”

“What? Oh, you sneaky git!” Keal laughed. “You were planning to go straight up to it without asking me?”

“Well, it’s true that I was heading in that general direction. And yes, I admit to not asking you. Does it matter? You couldn’t seem to settle on a destination for yourself and it means little if you’re drifting left or right, no? As long as you’re drifting.”

“Hmmm… can’t argue with that, I guess.”

For a few moments Keal looked thoughtfully at the mountains while new thoughts entered his head. It dawned on him that he had never given much thought to how he would fit in at the monastery. From what he understood the monks usually joined when they were young boys and got their entire schooling within the walls of the monastery. Thinking back on the parts of his nearly sixteen years long life he realised that while he had learned a lot of things about how to avoid getting beaten there was little else he knew. This dispirited him a lot though he did his best to hide it. If Metobaph had not outright objected then there would be some kind of solution for his lack of skills or knowledge. And he knew he would do his best once they got there. There was not much else he could do.

They set out for the day’s walk and as the blood started flowing through his body Keal found his mood was getting better so he started asking all sorts of question about life at the monastery, what he would be set to do at first, how far it was and so on. The closest he got to an answer, though, was that it would probably take less than a week to reach their destination and that while curiosity was a good thing patience was better. Mulling this over while they set out across the plain Keal found that he did not agree with this and the distance to the mountains seemed to grow larger with every step he took rather than shorter.

Eventually they reached first the hills and then the mountains. And so it was that they found themselves climbing a steep mountain trail several days later. There had been times during the climb where Keal had bitterly regretted his decision, at least temporarily. The so called trail was little more than a few scraped rocks here and there and the past two days, after they had left the foot hills surounding the mountains, had consisted more of trying to avoid broken ankles than actual walking. For Keal it also did not help that Metobaph possessed an uncanny ability to find the right place to step seemingly without thinking. Almost all the walking Keal had done so far in his life had been on fairly level ground. There had been a few hills, but with the roads they had only been a matter of walking upwards rather than straight out. Scrambling around, over and sometimes under large rocks was something completely different. Not only because the footing was treacherous, the way his back pack shifted back and forth across his back also made things difficult. He had often come close to losing his balance while balancing on the edge of a rock because he had forgotten the weight on his shoulders.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said breathing heavily, “I just can’t help wondering why you don’t have some kind of road or at least a path or trail. This must make it horribly difficult to get things to and from the monastery.”

“Ah, well that might just be the point, no?”

There was once more a light tone in Metobaph’s voice that Keal had not noticed until they had reached the mountains themselves. Combined with the spring in Metobaph’s steps as he moved from one rock to the next made it clear that despite his previous reluctance to return to the monastery he was now happy to be near their destionation. It rubbed off a little on Keal and made him feel like the troubles might be worth it after all.

Further and further up in the mountains they climbed and the air started to get colder and it felt like the sun itself grew colder. A little warmth could still be gleaned(?) from its rays, but not much and it was so little that they soon felt cold when a cloud covered the sun or they turned around a corner and walked into the shade. As night grew near on the coldest day they had seen so far Keal could not contain himself any longer. As he huddled under his thin blanket he started complaining about the cold, how far they had climbed and how long it had been since they had had any real food.

“You are free to turn back,” Metobaph said, “though I would suggest against it since I plan on continuing and there are not that many trail biscuits left.”

“Ugh! You can keep those. I’d much rather eat rocks now.”

Keal sullenly drew the blanket up over his head and curled up against a rock trying to find shelter from the wind and cold. He did not succeed and slept only a little that night. The times he woke up he could see the old man still sitting at the fire apparently not even attempting to sleep. This added to Keal’s frustration and he turned his back on both the man and the fire and did manage to get a little sleep before the world turned grey in the pre dawn light.

“Keal, get up!”

Shaking the boy’s shoulder and talking urgently Metobaph finally managed to rouse Keal.

“Come on. Quickly! And stay completely silent!”

As he saw Keal blink his eyes and begin to move Metobaph picked up his pack and walked around a large rock outcropping leading further on. Mumbling quiet curses to himself Keal kicked the blanket off him, then quickly gathered it around him as the chill morning air hit him. He wrapped up his belongings and stuffed them in his back before scrambling after Metobaph. It took a few moments for his legs to start working properly after the cold night and the rash/hurried awakening and as he rounded the corner he was staring down at his legs rubbing them with his hands. Then he looked up and saw a sight he would never forget.

The first rays of the rising sun spread out around a small peak not far from where Keal stood. There was a very clear path leading from where he was standing squinting his eyes against the light and all the way up to a large building that squatted just below the snow covered top of the peak. The path was almost completely straight and ran across a large plateu covered in green fields. For a few seconds Keal just stood there blinking as the sun rose directly behind the monastery, for this could not be anything else. Then he heard the deep tolling of a large bell sounding out from the peak shortly after followed by an even deeper rumbling sounds. It took him a few moments to realise that it must be some kind of gigantic horn which made the sound. The combination of the sight and the sounds made it impossible for him to move a muscle so he could only stand there taking in the splendour and beauty of it all while it lasted. Once the sun had risen/rised(?) above the monastery the bell and horn stopped playing and Keal was shaken from his reverie.

All thoughts of the cold and the hard climb vapourised and he bounced on along the path wanting to catch up with Metobaph as soon as possible. While he had stood still looking at the rising sun the old man must have moved on for he was no longer anywhere to be seen. Being distracted by finally having reached their destination Keal did not stop to realise that there were nowhere his companion could have hidden. From where he had walked around the corner the ground was level and there were no large rocks to hide behind or small gulleys/ditches(?) that might hide Metobaph from his sight. Full of anticipation he just walk as quickly as he dared, slipping into a quick trot every few minutes. There was still at least an hour’s walk to the monastery and while he was eager to get there he did not want to arrive completely out of breath with his tongue hanging out like some playful puppy.

Somewhere around halfway to the monastery it finally struck him that he should have caught up with Metobaph or at the very least have caught sight of him at some point. He had not been looking at the sunrise that long. This made him slow his pace and more warily he approached the gates. As he drew closer the gates opened and a procession of green clad monks walked out of them, some of the monks carrying what seemed like some kind of altar the likes of which Keal had never seen before. The altar vaguely resembled a large box with strange symbols carved into it and various decorations rose from its top. Slowing his pace almost to the point where he stopped walking entirely he moved to the side of the path to avoid getting in the way of the the serene looking monks. So far none of them had given any sign that they had seen him so he thought it best to keep to the side and let them approach rather than the other way. Slowly the monks came closer and closer and Keal started feeling a little uncomfortable because he seemed to be completely unnoticed. If it had only been a small handful of people he could understand how they might not notice him, but the procession seemed to hold at least 50 monks. At least some of them were bound to have noticed him, even with their hoods drawn that much down over their faces.

Closer and closer they came until they were finally just a few meters from Keal. Being this to them he could begin to catch a glimpse of their faces under the cowls of their robes. His breath caught in his throat as he noticed that the first three monks, walking slowly side by side, appeared to be blind, their completely white eyes gazing at nothing. Involuntarily he took a step back nearly fell over as his foot left the path and ventured out on the grass of one of the fields. In an attempt at catching his balance he bent down quickly and ended up kneeling down with one hand on the ground for support. At exactly the same time he heard a voice booming out from somewhere within the first half of the procession.

“Halt! My brothers, a traveller kneels before the Supreme’s altar!”

Looking up Keal was horrified to see that the altar was in fact straight in front of him. He swallowed hard feeling his mouth go dry and the cold chose that moment to return making his entire body shiver. His horror nearly turned to terror as he saw the entire procession stop and every single monk turn to face in his direction. From his position on the ground he had a far too clear view of several dozen empty, white unseeing eyes that all seemed to bore into his very being. It was impossible for him to keep looking at the monks so he turned his gaze to the ground again though this was hardly better as it meant he had no idea what was happening around him. He could hear the shuffling of feet, the whisk of the robes as the wind dragged them across the stones of the path. Then the voice spoke again, this time very, very close to Keal.

“Who approaches the Supreme’s altar? Speak freely, my child, and let us know your name and where you hail(?) from.”

After the initial question the voice no longer sounded as intimidating as it had when ordering the monks to stop. Keal licked his lips and croaked out a hoarse reply.

“My name is Keal, sir. I come from the forest, until recently from a journeying tribe with no real place to call home.”

“And how come you by our valley on this day?”

“An old man led me here. He told me about this place and that he used to live here. I… I don’t know where he is. He was with me just this morning as we came into the valley.”

“Impossible,” another voice said, this one sounding far sterner than the first.

“It’s true,” Keal gasped, “I met him several weeks ago while travelling through the forest and eventually our travels led us here and I asked if I could be allowed to come with him to the monastery. He said I could. I swear.”

For some time there was a drawn out silence. Keal felt more and more uncomfortable. He did not know whether to stand up or keep kneeling. He did not even dare to loop up for fear of who he might see before him. Eventually the first voice spoke again still in the calm, friendly tone.

“Then be at peace, my child. And please stand up so we can have a look at you.”

Keal did as asked and saw that two of the monks had left the procession and were now standing right in front of him. Unlike the other monks these two had normal eyes and Keal let out a small sigh of relief. Both men had an air of age and wisdom about them though their faces held no clue as to what their age might be. While they did not look youthful they also did not look old. They quite simply, and very disconcertingly, looked ageless. For a few moments the two monks stood appraising Keal until the boy could no longer stand still. Nervously he shifted the pack on his back and bowed his head more from shyness than awe.

“Uhm,” he said, “sorry about interrupting your…”

He motioned slightly towards the procession of monks without knowing precisely what to call it. One of the monks looked back at the still monks and snorted. When he once again turned to look at Keal he had an amused smile on his face. This did not exactly make Keal any less nervous when he stole a glance up at the pair.

“Our procession?” the monk said, “oh, do not worry about that. It seems far more likely that it is us who should apologise to you, a stranger seeking our beloved ashram. On this day even more so. Relax, young Keal, and allow me to show you back to the monastery so you can relieve yourself of your pack and find a little rest. My memory, vague though it is, still tells me that the trek through the mountain is an arduous one.”

Keal nodded quietly at the last, implied question. The trek had indeed been hard and the thought of sitting somewhere inside warmed him. He let the monk take his arm and together they walked up the trail towards the gates of the monastery while the other monk angrily mumbled something and the procession started walking again. The monk leading Keal walked serenely until they had passed the end of the column, then he visibly relaxed and winked sideways at Keal.

“Don’t mind old Jamor. He’s always a stiffler for traditions and rituals. A fantastic mind, very gifted, yes. But too hung up on whether to carry the insense burner in the left or the right hand. Ah. Never mind that. Let’s get you inside and pour a little warm soup down your throat. You’re freezing so hard your lips are blue, my young friend. Keal, was it? Oh, that reminds me. I’m Arek, official gate keeper and thus equally officially in charge of who’s allowed inside or not. Jamor wasn’t too keen on letting a stranger inside while all the monks were out, but if you ask me that’s nothing to care about.”

Arek kept talking quietly about nothing in particular all the way back to the monastery keeping a firm grip on Keal’s upper arm as if he needed the support or he would fall over. His relaxed and friendly manner made Keal warm to him almost immediately. Behind him he could hear that the monks in the procession had started chanting in a language unknown to him. It sounded completely different from any of the dialects he had heard while travelling with the tribe. Almost everywhere they had been the language had been more or less the same just with different pronounciations and a few specialised words here and there. The language the monks used sounded very strange. Keal could not really figure out if he liked the language or not. In some ways he founded the almost singing rythm of it beautiful, then he would start noticing the individual words who all sounded very harsh and rough. Since Arek seemed in no real hurry and was already well into explaining how the monastery had been built on top of an old mountain fortress of some kind Keal decided that if he was indeed about to start living here he might as well begin learning some of the things he imagined he ought to have learned earlier. If he had joined the monastery as a small boy like Metobaph had.

“Excuse me for interrupting,” he said, “but what language is that they’re singing in? I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

“Oh, that. That’s the holy language. Passed down through the generations it contains all the secret knowledge of the Supreme, the teachings that will let us find inner peace and tranquility and the way to the realms beyond this one.”

From Arek’s solemn voice, quite a contrast to his earlier ramblings, Keal took it that this was something important to the monk. As he thought about it he could see why it would be. The depths and wealth of knowledge that existed in an entirely different language would surely be enormous. Despite being a bit sceptical about how it could possibly hold the way to inner peace he could still understand why the monk seemed to treasure it so dearly. Perhaps that understanding was what nearly caused him to stumble as Arek continued talking.

“It’s a shame no one actually knows what it all means,” he said. “The stories tell us that once there existed a great library nearby that monks would journey to and study the ancient texts left in the care of another order. No one has gone there in ages or rather, those who have have never been able to find the library and with time it seems that we simply forgot the meaning of the words.”

A heavy sigh escaped Arek’s lips.

“But why am I confusing you with all this nonsense. You said you had travelled with one from our order? Well, let’s try and find out who it was. While we’ve lost some knowledge we still haven’t slipped entirely back to the animal state and we should be able to find someone who can give a reasonably usable description of the monks who have journeyed out into the world. That we do seem to keep far better records of than other things.”

The laughter in Arek’s voice caused Keal to think that there was some kind joke lost on him in the last bit. They had come nearly all the way to the monastery and as they got close he could see that it must indeed be built on top of some kind of fortress. What had looked like a sturdy stone foundation turned out to be both tall and thick walls made of some strange form of hard pressed earth or perhaps burned clay of some kind. Noticing Keal’s gaze the monk sadly told him that the construction of those walls was also something that had been lost to time. They had been able to expand on the basic foundation with either stone walls or wood buildings like the formidable gate house, but the actual walls themselves they could not reproduce. Before entering Arek pulled Keal over to the side of the wall so he could feel it. The wall felt like stone yet with the same slightly porous finish that he had felt on freshly baked clay pots that had not yet been painted or glazed. He stood there for a while letting his fingers move back and forth over the strange material. For some reason he found it oddly calming to do so and he had to catch himself as his mind began to wander off seemingly to have a mind of its own that he was not aware of. When he removed his hand from the wall it very nearly felt as if some kind of connection between him and the wall had been broken. He was just about to ask Arek about this when he decided against it as he was not even sure if he had felt the connection or not. Somehow it already felt like it had only been something that existed inside his own head. There had been no tingling sensation in his fingers at the touch and neither had there been a lack of it when he removed his hand. Giving a mental shrug he decided to put this to the back of his mind and took a few quick strides as he noticed that Arek had started moving towards the gates and was already a few paces away.

When he caught up with him the monk once more took his arm and gently led him through the gates and into a small building just inside the walls. Before entering Keal managed to get a glimpse at what lay inside the monastery and what he saw amazed him so much that he stopped dead in his tracks nearly pulling Arek off balance. In the middle was a large, empty courtyard that could easily hold the entire procession he’d seen outside, and probably at least twice that many people. The entire courtyard was done with coloured tiles that seemed to form some kind of pattern that was spiralling out from the center and ending in paths leading off to the entrance of several buildings set against the wall. There was at least half a dozen large buildings and many more that were the size of small houses and looked like they could easily be the home of a large family. At intervals along the wall slim, well kept, cone shaped trees stood their thin leaves green despite the cold environment. At the very center of the courtyard a large square was marked by a wooden railing(?) that had been painted in the same sanguine red as almost all the woodwork Keal could see.

From the corners of the buildings intricate charms and lamps were hanging, the faint breeze rocking them gently back and forth. Inside the gates, where Keal was walking he could see similar charms and was fascinated with the way several threads of all colours had been interwoven in such a way that more than a single pattern could be discovered in their layout. The mere sight of this rooted Keal to the spot and took his breath away. Even though he could remember how things had looked back in Porbuyat even that large city was no match for the monastery when it came to beauty and perfection. Where the city had been impressive in its size and complexity the monastery’s simplicity and the care with which it had been built made it far more impressive and left Keal wondering why no one had used this way of building houses.

After he had stood there for a while Arek discreetly tugged at his arm.

“Food, Keal,” he said, “food in your stomach will make this sight seem both far more impressive and far less. Trust me, you’re not the only one who’s been gawping when they first entered, nor will you be the last. And there are in fact several of our brethren that sometimes can be found standing quietly in a corner just looking at our home with a small smile on their face.”

The monk’s voice brought Keal out of his reverie and he slowly closed his open mouth and turned to enter the building Arek was pointing at. Out of the corner of his eyes he spotted some movement across the courtyard, but it had disappeared before he had gotten more than a glimpse of what appeared to be a well nurished child. He turned completely back to the courtyard hoping to get another glance. It struck him that all the monks in the procession had been adults so, judging by what Metobaph had told him, there should be a lot of children somewhere inside the monastery.

“Come on,” Arek said, “there’ll be plenty of time for that later on.”

“Okay. I just thought I saw someone. Metobaph told me there’d be children here and I thought I saw one across the courtyard. Guess there’ll also be plenty of time to see them as well.”

Keal turned to enter the building and was surprised to see Arek staring at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. The monk blinked a few times before muttering something in the strange language. Though Keal did not understand it he had the distinct impression that it was some kind of curse and Arek’s voice had indeed lost all traces of friendliness when he grabbed Keal’s arm.

“Who? Who told you there’d be children here?” Arek demanded.

“Metobaph. He’s the old man who led me here.”

Seeing Arek’s confusion Keal decided to try explaining a little.

“A few weeks ago I met him down in the forest by a small stream. We started talking and eventually he let me join him. As we talked he told me more and more about this place and it sounded like a wonderful place. I don’t have anywhere else to call home and no family so he allowed me to follow him here.”

Keal hoped this was not too far from the truth that it would get him into trouble later. His heart sank, however, when he saw Arek’s face go very pale, almost white.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Without replying Arek pulled Keal into the building and with remarkable strength pushed him down in a simple chair. The monk sat down opposite to Keal and, still pale, just looked at him for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. After he had calmed down a bit he spoke quickly and commanding to Keal.

“Please just sit here. I’ll go make sure you get some food and then I’d like to hear everything about your journey here. You see, Metobaph is, shall we say, very special to us.”

Arek left Keal alone with his thoughts in the small room and went outside before Keal could reply. As he crossed the courtyard a lot of thoughts raced through his mind from who Keal really was to why Metobaph had chosen to guide the boy here. More than anything he wanted to run straight out the gate to find Jamor to get his guidance in what might become a very difficult situation. From the way Keal had casually mentioned Metobaph it was very clear that the boy had no idea who Metobaph really was and what it meant that “the old man” had chosen to manifest in this world. There was no doubt in Arek’s mind that Keal had spoken the truth when he had told about how he had simply met a stranger in the forest and, all things considered, Arek did not think Keal had really had a choice regarding whether he would have journeyed on with Metobaph or not.

Just as he was about to change direction and really do run out to find Jamor he stopped himself. Metobaph had not sent anyone to the monastery for decades, maybe more than a century. In the more than thirty years Arek that had passed since his initiation he could not remember even hearing about anyone who had been sent here like this. He should at the very least take a quick look at the records of who had arrived in the past years to see if there were any who had given similarly strange accounts of how they had found the monastery. Normally, the monk would take in children some of their journeying brethren had found abandoned to their own fates, not unlike what had happened to Keal. But usually the children would be so young that they had little other choice than to perish and the journeying monk would accompany them all the way to the monastery and begin their basic tuition on the way. It seemed like Keal had not been given more than a brief glimpse at what the monastery was and nothing what so ever about what the order of the Supreme really did and worked towards. In a way, Arek reflected, this made sense as Keal was old enough that he might have decided against going at some point and it would not do to have an uninitiated roaming the realms with too much knowledge.

While he had been thinking he had made his way to the archives and stopped briefly before one of the two icons hanging on either side of the doorway to the large room filled with shelf after shelf of records of everything that had happened here for several centuries. The icon on the left portrayed a fierce looking woman whose eyes burned with passion. Arek gave a brief prayer to the Lady asking for a little of her strength and determination to see the right thing to do about Keal. Then he turned to the icon of the Lord on the right side of the doorway and simply asking a short question.

“What,” Arek asked, “have you done this time, old man?”

With the words still hanging in the air he briskly strode into the archives startling the ancient clerk who seemed to have lived in this vaulted room all her life. Sparing no time for explanations Arek simply asked for information about the last time the Lord had sent anyone to the monastery, who it had been and what had happened in the years after that. The clerk coughed with a confused look on her face but quickly shuffled off down one of the long rows of shelves with an impatient Arek right behind her. It was all he could do to not letting his impatience take over as he paced back and forth while the clerk slowly, all too slowly for Arek’s blood pressure, made her way through first one then another thick, leather bound volume.

“Yes,” she mumbled, “yes. There’s one here who look to be the last. Oh no!”

At her outcry Arek whirled on the spot to look at her. His eyes wandered from her shocked face down her arm to the finger pointing at a page in the book. He leaned in closer to look at what she had found. The page held a long list of who had joined the monastery in what appeared to be a very busy year when it came to initiations. The dates on both this and the opposing page were all from the middle of the same year so Arek could only wonder at just how many boys and girls had joined throughout that year. All this he took in in the split second between his looking at the page for the first time and when he realised which name the old woman was pointing at. His entire being shook as he recognised the name and all the stories of what horrors had followed leapt to his mind and only many the willforce of years of training kept him from sitting down / kept his knees from buckling.

“It cannot be,” he whispered.

When Gods Walk The Earth

The procession moved on down the path towards the sacred grounds where the ceremonial celebration of the coming of Lord Metobaph. Jamor cast a single look back at the receding forms of Arek and the boy as they made their way towards the monastery. In the pit of his stomach he could feel that something was wrong though he could not pin point what it was. Perhaps it was simply the result of being pulled out of the trance they had all entered before the procession started. Even after this many years he still felt a bit dazed when his normal vision returned changing the world around him from that glowing forms of the spirit world to that of the physical world. He sighed as he listened to the sounds of the monks around him and mentally prepared himself to reenter the trance and continue the celebration ritual. The landscape and people around him wavered eerily in front of his eyes as they clouded over and gradually the greenclad shapes turned into bright beacons, reflections of the strength of their souls. As the last remnants of the dull rocks changed to the dark light of the most ancient of life forms, mountains, his mind pushed away the thoughts of the boy and stored them for later inspection.

For hours the ritual went on with the monks performing several reenactments of the works of Lord Metobaph from his levelling of the mountains to make room for the monatery to the way he had thwarted the young, mortal race of Humans as they sought to conquer the nature around them. Though Jamor knew he was supposed to feel equally elated by, yet detached from, every single part of the ritual he could not help take special pleasure in the part that signified how Lord Metobaph, the right hand of the Supreme, had created the Human race to begin with. This direct link between all the monks’ living beings and their origins always seemed to made the very air around them crackle with living energy. With the sun baking down directly from above the monks were all spread out kneeling in several concentric circles with Jamor standing up in the middle. His head throbbed from the force of the energy the monks were directing towards the representation of their beliefs and he felt larger than ever before as he threw back his head and looked straight up at the sun. Seen through the spirit world there was no sight as impressive as the sun’s spirit. What would have burned normal eyes to blindness in the physical world now seemed to pour even warmer and more powerful energy not into Jamor’s eyes, but into his entire being and that of the monks around him. The longer he kept his mind’s eye open to the power of the sun the more he felt himself swell.

When he felt he was about to burst his mind carefully touched the link to those around him and he felt the sun’s energy being channeled through him into every single monk. The power he felt was truly awesome and he took great care to spread it out among the monks based on how he could sense their ability to control it. Too much energy poured into a single being could easily incinerate it and, in addition to that person’s gruesome death, it could very easily cause an interruption so great that everyone else would suffer the same fate.

Power flowed through his body and mind as he raised his arms and reached as high into the air as he could. It seemed to him as if the tips of his fingers could almost reach the sun. They were nearing the climax of the ritual and he slowly began to slow the energy waves flowing into him. All around him he could sense more than see his brethren as they too came close to bursting from the power they had absorbed. Using the link that existed between them he used the very last energy he received from the sun to sent out a final wave of energy through the others. To their senses it was the equivalent of a flaring ring that started in Jamor and spread out as a glowing band touching each circle of monks as it widened towards the edge of the processions.

Anyone looking at them in the physical realm would see each circle of monks jump to their feet and spread their hands to the sky forming an impressive waveform from the man in the middle to the last circle of monks. Soon after the central monk curled up in a ball and fell to his knees pulling his head down so his forehead touched the ground. Around him all the monks fell backwards from him until they all lay on the ground, still with the arms stretched out over their heads and the back of their hands touching the ground.

Jamor felt the faint, spiritual echo of his brethren around him as his mind and vision once more returned to the physical world. Then, slowly and steadily, the monks in the outer ring rose to their feet and began to pull out of the circle to form the sides of the procession back to the monastery. One by one each ring did the same until Jamor was at the point of two human triangles just like he had been as they left the monastery and they were ready to return as a mirrored image of themselves as they had left the monastery. Or almost a mirrored image. Jamor could feel the vacancy behind him where Arek should have stood. Arek’s place during the ceremony should have been outside the circles themselves as he was the Keeper of the Gates, responsible for holding the door between the physical and spiritual worlds closed. This position was more metaphorical than real so it had not caused any great disturbance that he had chosen to accompany the boy back to the monastery. Jamor silently berated himself for letting his thoughts slip as the ceremony still needed an uninterrupted finish. Once more he pushed all thoughts of the young boy to the back of his head.

That was when he felt something he had never felt before. Something was not quite right. At the climax of the ritual all the power should have been grounded and returned to the world around them through the ancient rocks they were standing on. Now it seemed like there were remnants of the power lingering in the air around them. Quickly he looked around him and saw that several of the others were also glancing around with everything from incomprehension to confusion to outright fear showing in their eyes. His mind raced as he tried to replay as much of the ritual as he could remember in search of something that had gone wrong. Nothing. Nothing had gone wrong. And yet he could feel the tension of the monks around him af if they were still linked as they had been during the ritual. The tension grew rapidly and he realised that if he did not do something very fast the entire procession was likely to collapse so he took a deep breath and began letting out a deep, rumbling sound powered by his beliefs in the Supreme and his hopes for the future. As he felt the sound resonate in his body he gently shaped it into a strong note not unlike that of a great horn.

Slowly some of the other monks began doing the same and soon the same music that had sounded through the valley as the procession left the monastery could be heard again. When Jamor was satisfied that the monks kept the notes flowing he shifted his voice to the previous chanting and this, too, was quickly taken up by other monks. With order restored Jamor touched his hands to the shoulders of the two monks at his sides and slightly ahead of him. They in turn did the same and soon all the monks at the front of each column in the procession felt the hand of a fellow monk on his or her shoulder and when the outermost monks were linked to each other through the others’ touch they started moving back towards the monastery at a slow pace, their voices echoing off the sides of the valley.

When they reached the gates to the courtyard the outer columns stopped to let the inner columns advance ahead of them. In this way the procession folded in on itself until Jamor was in the lead with the four monks that had walked at his sides behind him walking in pairs. Behind them came the next two columns and so on until at last the two monks at the very end of the outermost columns walked beneath the arch of the gatehouse. The monks passed the courtyard until Jamor stood in front of the large temple that lay straight across from the gates. Behind him the procession once more fanned out into a large triangle spreading backwards and to the sides. As always he remained alert and kept an ear open trying to both hear and feel how the monks were falling into place behind him. There was usually a little shuffling as his brethren created the formation that symbolised the way they helped lift each other towards the tip of the triangle, the symbol for the Supreme, in this case personified by Jamor. Within him he could still feel the lingering energy and he could not help wonder if the other monks felt something similar. Perhaps that was the reason there was none of the shuffling into place today. Or maybe his thoughts about the energy just distracted him so he did not hear the shuffling. Either way he was pleased with how quickly the monks behind him seemed to have fallen into place and gradually, starting at the back, had ceased their chanting until only he himself was left voicing these incomprehensible words that had been passed down through the ages.

The last word in the final prayer to the Supreme left his words and the courtyard fell completely silent as Jamor gathered a few deep breaths and prepared to turn around and thank the others for their devotion to the Supreme. That was when it struck him as if he had been slapped in the face. Until today he had not known that the last words he recited had been a prayer to the Supreme. Unwillingly he started trembling as he let those words sift through his mind and realised that he understood them. Taking another deep breath he straightened even more than he already was before, in a break from tradition, he knelt down before the temple and spoke the last prayer again in a high, clear voice. This time it felt completely different. While he realised he must have understood the words as he had set them just before kneeling he was now conscious of the way each word made sense, how the words served as a link to the energy inside him and how, at the very end of the prayer, that energy contracted inside him making both his body and mind firmer and stronger.

He stood up again and turned to face his brothers and sisters. The closest four looked at him with far more respect in their eyes than what he had ever seen while at the same time appearing confused as if they did not understand what had happened and why he had spoken that additional prayer. He wondered whether they had been able to understand the words or not and made a mental note to invite them to discuss the morning’s events later in the day. Before that, however, there was the matter of finishing the ritual according to tradition. If the four highest ranking monks, next to himself and Arek, had not understood the words he had spoken it seemed unlikely any of the other monks had. In a strong voice he thanked the monks for their attention and ensured them that with this level of dedication to the Supreme they had all grown not only throughout this ritual but also during the hard work each of them put in every single day. Then he dismissed them while motioning the four at the front to follow him into the temple.

Once the other monks had scattered and gone off to find their midday meal and normal duties all five of them entered the temple in respectful silence. Just inside the temple doors Jamor stopped as he was surprised to find Arek kneeling in the middle of the temple with his forehead touching the floor and his arms stretched out toward the altar at the far end of the room. Not wanting to disturb his old friend’s prayers he silently motioned for the others to follow him outside again. Back in the courtyard he once more thanked them for their help in the ritual and asked them to come see him after the evening meal. He did not give them any specific reason for the meeting, but they seemed to have guessed that he wanted to discuss what had happened. While they might not have understood precisely what had been going on they had sensed that something out of the ordinary had happened. That much was clear from the serious faces and solemn confirmations that they would meet him immediately after the evening meal.

Standing at the doors to the temple he watched them walk off and he let out a long sigh. This particular ritual was always hard on both mind and body and with what had happened he felt even more in need of rest than usual. Yet at the same time he could still feel the energy burning within him as a new source of power for him. He sat down on the steps to the temple and tried to look inside himself in search for what the energy could be, what it could mean. The answer to those questions eluded him and he eventually opened his eyes again to find that Arek was now sitting next to him with a worried look on his face.

“We need to talk,” Arek said, “I fear that something has happened this morning that might very well change everything we think we know.”

“You felt it too, then?”

“Felt it?”

The worried frown on Arek’s face turned into a puzzled look.

“I didn’t feel anything. It’s about Keal, the boy who came here.”

From inside his robes Arek dug out a paper scroll and unrolled it so Jamor could read it. On the paper was a copy of the name and date he had found in the archives along with a handful of notes about some of the events that had happened shortly afterwards.

“The Lady and Lord protect us,” Jamor whispered.

“I remember hearing about some of those things a long time ago,” Arek said, “but had not thought much about how they were related to each other before now. I’m still not sure what it means. There are a lot of books from those days I have not had time to read through yet. So far, though, it seems like Keal may very well be the cause of either good fortune for the entire world or something truly horrible.”

Jamor took the piece of paper from Arek’s hands and read through it again. All thoughts about the morning’s ritual had vanished from his mind.

“If I remember the teachings correctly it can swing either way. But why did you think to look at these things?”

It took a few moments before the visibly shaken Arek answered.

“Because Keal told me that the old man who had led him here was called Metobaph.”

Everything around Jamor seemed to pause for several seconds as he tried to convince himself that he had misheard the other monk’s words. Desperately, he attempted to convince himself that Arek was just trying to pull one of the jokes they had laughed so much over when they were younger. This could not be true, he thought. Then he sighed and rolled up the paper before handing it back.

“So they walk the realms again?”

Arek just nodded and put the paper back inside his robes.

“And all we can do,” he said, “is to walk with them the best we can.”

“Where’s the boy?”

“Out for a short walk in the back end of the valley with a full stomach. He can’t have had much to eat lately judging from the way he gorged himself. Anyways, I figured it might be an idea to let him take a look around and, besides, it might not have been the best thing if he had been here when the procession returned. I was afraid of what might have happened.”

Jamor nodded and snapped his fingers as he once more remembered the strange events.

“Come with me,” he said, “there’s something else we need to discuss. In private.”

He led the way to his study in the building next to the main temple and waved his hand at one of the two arm chairs near the fireplace gesturing for Arek to sit down. Before sitting down himself he went to a small cabinet and retrieved two cups and filled them with a golden liquid from a tall carafe. Passing one to Arek he sat down heavily in the free chair and gave a sigh of pleasure as he felt the strong, but sweet, mead flow inside him. Slowly and from the beginning he began recounting his experiences from the morning’s ritual. Arek listened intensely without interrupting though question after question leapt into his mind. Once Jamor had finished talking they both sat in silence for a while as they emptied their glasses.

“I think a refill is in order,” Arek said.

Instead of bringing the glasses to the cabinet he simply brought the carafe and put it on the small, round table between the two chairs after refilling first Jamor’s then his own glass. He sat back down and pursed his lips as he attempted to formulate some of the many question he had.

“Do you think any of the others felt the same as you did?”

“Not sure. Perhaps the Four Corners did though they mainly seemed puzzled about why I had repeated the last prayer. I’ll be meeting them after the evening meal to talk this through and would appreciate it if you joined us.”

“Of course, of course. Do you still remember the words of the prayer? And can you translate it word by word?”

“No, that’s the strange thing. Until I sat down and described it to you know I hadn’t realised that I still don’t understand the language. But when the words flowed through me they held a new meaning. I can still remember it and, put simply, it was a prayer to the Supreme thanking him for the life he’s given us.”

“Intriguing. Remember what old Varen used to tell us? That the meaning of our prayers was not to be found in the actual words but in the thoughts and feelings inside us as we recited the ancient rhymes.”

“Yes,” Jamor said.

Both of them smiled softly at the memory of the previous Tip of the Triangle. Old Varen had been leading the monastery for what seemed an eternity ranging from at least a decade before Jamor and Arek had been initiated until his death a few years ago. While they could both easily have looked up precisely how long Jamor’s predecessor had been the Tip neither of them had. It did not seem relevant and, unconsciously if not consciously, they both wanted, needed, to let the illusion remain that Varen had been there since the founding of the monastery. They both knew, of course, that there had been many others and throughout their years in the monastery the signs of age had gradually begin to show on Varen’s face until, at the very end, he had looked like a normal old man with wrinkles and grey hair. It was an old fact that the members of the order retained their ageless faces almost their entire adult life so the aging of Varen was proof that he had been very old indeed.

“Yes,” Jamor repeated, “Varen did say that. And as we’ve discussed many times he was right. At least, he was right that we do not have to understand the words to revere and respect the Supreme. But now I can’t help wondering what the rest of the words mean. Ah! Curse my blasted memory. Why can’t I just remember those blasted words?!”

Arek let his friend rant like this for a few minutes before stopping him with soft look and another refill. They let the topic of the ancient language alone and instead moved on to talk about the energy and power Jamor had felt flowing through his body. Though he could still feel it, or at least a lingering echo, it seemed to have waned along with his understanding of the language. Together they went through a series of mental exercises in the hope that it could somehow bring back at least some of what Jamor had felt. Suddenly they heard the deep ringing of the bell as it summoned all the monks to the evening prayer and the following meal.

“Keal!” Arek said.

He slapped himself on the forehead as he realised he had completely forgotten all about the boy as they had talked.

“I hope he managed to find his way back. If not it will probably be okay as I told him that if he heard the bell again he should head back so he would be here in time for dinner.”

Jumping up from the chair he hastily said goodbye to Jamor and went off in search for the boy.

When Arek had left his study room Jamor put away the carafe and glasses and took a few moments to gather himself and his thoughts before attending the evening prayer. Briefly he considered asking on of the Four Corners to do it for him but decided against it. They had already sensed that something was out of place today and if that had left them nervous it would not make them less so if he did not say the prayer himself. As he walked out the door he settled his face in a solemn mask suitable for the worship of the Supreme and sent a warm thought after Arek. Sometimes he could not help but feel that between the two of them Arek was the fortunate one. He did have many obligations as the Keeper of the Gates and somehow always seem to be busy with at least one of them. Yet despite that he always had time for a lot of other things that Jamor no longer felt he could do. Their order took great pride in teaching that the person leading the monastery was not to be held above the others, but even so he could not help himself. To him the responsibility he had accepted prevented him from taking a day off from time to time simply to work in the fields or talk to the younger monks about things that was outside, and sometimes even went beyond, their curriculum. Arek had the freedom to do this because most of his duties were practical matters rather than the formal rituals Jamor did every day.

If he had seen himself in a mirror he would have been surprised at how his gentle smile that spoiled his solemn mask made him seem far more like the head of an entire monastery than serene piety could ever have. It was not until he stood facing his brethren and felt the warmth they radiated back at him that he realised he was smiling. By then he found he actually preferred it like that and went on to complete the prayer feeling again the energy stirring deep inside him, even if he still did not understand the words.

At the end of the prayer Jamor noticed that Arek and the boy Keal slipped quietly in the door behind the monks. For a moment he wondered why Arek would bring him here rather than show him the children’s dining hall, but then it dawned on him that Keal was probably older than some of the youngest monks in the room. This was confirmed when, as the evening meal started and the atmosphere grew less formal, Arek introduced Keal to him. Now that he had a good chance to measure Keal he found that the young man’s small, wiry stature made him seem younger than he really was. His eyes gave away his age, though, as they were wary and keen unlike a child’s that would either have been frightened or naïvely curious. The difference between his stature and eyes made Jamor make a mental note to take at least a few moments to meditate on the difference between age and age some time soon.

“Greeting, Keal,” he said, “first, let me apologise for the curt reception you got this morning. As you could no doubt see we were not really expecting guests so your arrival took us a bit off balance.”

The voice that answered his greeting was cautious and confident, but also warm and honest.

“Thank you, sir. Arek already explained that. If I had realised what I was interrupting I would have waited. I just hadn’t realised that the monastery was right around the corner from where I, we, camped last night and the beautiful sunrise made it impossible to resist coming nearer.”

The smile on Jamor’s face turned warmer than it already was as he remember how his arrival at the monastery had been. Keal was fortunate to have gotten his first glimpse of it at the dawn of this particular day, not like Jamor who had arrived in the dusk on a grey, rainy day.

“Now, I understand you’ve come here seeking to live here, hm?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good. Normally people are a bit younger when they first come here, but I’m sure we can figure out how to make things good for you. I can honestly say that we will at the very least do our best to welcome you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Ah, one important thing. Please don’t say ‘sir’. It’s our intention to avoid the hierarchies that have caused so many problems in the world.”

“Yes, sir. I mean. Yes. Uhm, if I may? What should I call you then?”

Jamor smiled at this.

“Jamor would be a good choice. Or, if you prefer, you can always refer to any of the monks as brother and any of the children as little brother.”

Keal scratched his shoulder and glanced around the room with a hint of nervousness in his eyes.

“What about the women? Shouldn’t they be called sisters?”

“Well, I don’t think anyone would mind if you did. To us the term brother is just not so much related to our gender as it is to how we see each others as equals.”

“Oh.”

With an approving look in his eyes Jamor waited while Keal was thinking about this for a few moments. It was very clear to him that this young man was not just a random stranger who had stumbled upon the monastery. Perhaps he was influenced by the day’s events, he thought, but it was almost as if he could literally feel how Keal was working things through in his mind. How he processed everything he had seen and heard and put it together. Nodding slowly he padded Keal’s shoulder and asked him to sit and enjoy the meal. There would be plenty of time later for sorting out where to start his education and how everything worked at the monastery. Together they shared the meal while talking a bit about where Keal had been and how it had been like to grow up in the tribe. Jamor and Arek carefully avoided talking about Metobaph as much as they could, Keal avoided talking about his meeting with Jinx and the more horrible things that had happened in his life.

After the meal Keal was asked to follow a woman named Nica who would find a place for him to sleep and take care of getting him introduced to life at the monastery over the next few days. She greeted Keal with a warm smile and surprised him by lifting his pack as if it weighed nothing at all. The women back in the tribe had not been weak, far from it. But none of them would ever have picked up a pack, especially Keal’s. Still, he had had far worse surprises in his life so far so he simply thanked her as she gave no indication whatsoever of being offended he did not try to stop her.

Before Nica shepherded him out of the dining hall by Nica, Keal noticed that Jamor, Arek and four serious looking monks headed off together out a side door. He would have liked to talk more to the two monks. It seemed to him that there had been something they were not telling him and his instincts from his childhood made him try to guard himself, not because of any specific thing they had said. More because there seemed to be far more than what was immediately clear to the eye.

He kicked himself mentally for being so suspicious so soon. These were not just random people on the road who might want to rob him of anything he had. If they had wanted to do so they could all too easily have done it already so he figured that, for now at least, he would trust them and allow himself to relax a little. The thought of sleeping in a real bed after eating a large, warm dinner felt very tempting and when Nica showed him his room he felt like he could fall asleep on his feet and not wake up for several days.

Apparenly he was not as good at hiding his fatigue as he thought for Nica quietly let him know that after his long trek here he should take a few days to get properly rested and that noone would make any demands of him just yet. No sooner had she left him alone in the small room before he pulled off his clothes, crawled under the covers and promptly fell asleep.

Outside the door Nica waited patiently for a few minutes before sending a silent prayer to the Supreme asking for a long, well deserved sleep for Keal. She touched the door with her fingertips as her last thought went out to Keal and was startled to feel a slight, tingling sensation. It lasted only for a split second and as soon as it had started it stopped again. Folding her arms inside her robes she walked slowly away wondering if it was the young man or her who was most fatigued.

On her way back to her own quarters she met Arek who was out on one of his nightly walk in the courtyard. Nica had never fully understood these walks Arek took. He would wander through the courtyard seemingly at random, yet there seemed to be some kind of pattern to his route that felt just out of reach to her. The old monk’s evening walks were widely known throughout the monks as a harmless personality quirk and it was not until a few years ago that she had noticed that Arek was not simply distant from the rest of the world in a vacant, day dreaming manner. He was, she had observed, completely focussed on something he, and only he, knew what was.

As she had so often done before she paused for a while and stood under the protruding roof of one of the monks’ sleeping quarters patiently waiting to see where Arek would go next. To her surprise his route this evening brought him meandering towards where she stood and she quickly looked around. She was the only one here, apart from Arek, and she was sure she had walked as quietly as possible to avoid disturbing those who used the quiet hours of the night to meditate. Even so he must obviously have heard her or he would not be walking towards her, she thought.

Closer and closer Arek’s steps took him until he was finally standing right next to her. His last steps had taken him a bit to the side so he was not facing the building, but stood beside her. That was when she noticed that his eyes had turned completely misty just like all their eyes did during the celebration to the Supreme. As far as she knew that was the only time their eyes did this and it was generally believed that it was because the monks’ combined devotion together with the specific day made the Supreme be as close to them as possible. Not even a rumour had she heard about a monk who’s eyes had been changed like this outside the ceremony. And yet here was one standing right next to her.

She held her breath for fear of disturbing him and dared not move a muscle lest she wake him from his trance. For a few moments he stood gazing at her with those empty eyes. Then he turned slowly to face the courtyard and spoke in a quiet voice that seemed to reach Nica’s being rather than her ears. The effect of Arek’s voice and words caused her to finally give in to the feeling of fear and foreboding that swirled around her heart like a cold mist.

“Things will never be the same,” Arek said, “never, never, never…”

Nica did not hear how long the old monk kept repeating that word. She fled into the building behind her hoping to escape the voice that carried more than just words to her. When she finally calmed down a bit she noticed that she had retreated all the way to the farthest end of the dormitory and was curled up in a corner leaning against the wall with her hands over her ears. She could no longer hear the eerie voice and began crying softly as gentle hands helped her to a bed and stroked her head as she slipped off into a dreamless sleep.

When she woke up she found herself alone in the dormitory and gasped as she realised the sun was high in the sky. Hastily she got her robes in order and ran out to start doing her daily duties. Then she remembered that she was supposed to take care of Keal and that, in turn, brought the memories from the night before fresh to her mind. Feeling dizzy she stood for a while with her hand on the wall for support while she forced her breathing to remain calm and controlled. She soon felt better and set off in search of someone who might have been there and helped her to her bed, or perhaps she might even steal a few moments of Arek’s time. As luck would have it she did find Arek first, but just as she was about to ask him about the tingling sensation she had felt at the door and about what he had talked about in the courtyard she felt her mouth go completely dry and, for the first time since she had joined the monastery, she felt that there was something she could not bring herself to ask. The feeling was so frightening that she had had to mumble some vague excuse to Arek and hurry off to gather her wits again, something that took the rest of the morning.

After the midday meal, which she skipped, she decided to keep things to herself and try to find out more about them by spending as much time with Keal as possible. She was sure he was not just another child to seek out the monastery. What she had felt after showing him his room and the strange meeting with Arek made her feel certain that the young man held secrets none of them, perhaps not even himself, knew about. She was determined to do her best to uncover them and, if need be, protect Keal from them.

Going For A Walk

For the next several days Keal did not do much other than sleeping, eating and being introduced to all the different things happening at the monastery. In the morning and in the evening all the monks would gather for prayers and meals. So would the children and as he learned more about the monastery he realised that there were not as many children as he had first thought. There were perhaps two or three dozen of all ages from two or three to thirteen or fourteen. The ones who stayed on until they were older than that had all been initiated and become actual monks. Once in a while one of the children would choose to leave the monastery rather than be initiated and as far as Keal could figure out the monks held no grudges against them. Instead of becoming monks and living and working up in the mountains those children would, hopefully, use the things they had learned through their years of training to help create better lives for both their fellow people and themselves.

That last part was something Keal was very intrigued by as he had so far seen the monks as reclusive people who would, on the rare occasions they did interact with the rest of the world, be humble and full of self sacrifice. After speaking with several of them he got the impression that while they did strive to help others they almost never did so if it meant they would have to pay a too high price, either physically, mentally or emotionally. Instead they would do their best to turn any situation into something that everyone benefitted from. Something about this made an enormous amount of sense to someone like Keal who had spent the better part of his life being subdued and not having any way of improving his situation. He knew from hard experience that there was nothing glorious about doing thing only for the benefit of others.

All too quickly the days turned into weeks as Keal started dividing his time between being taught by the monks and working on various tasks for the monastery. There was always something that needed to be fixed, or a field where an extra set of hands could be of use and so on. None of the monks tried to conceal the fact that they were shuffling him between as many jobs as possible to get an idea of what he could already do and what he had no talent for. At first he was somewhat put off at this because of his ingrown fear of being punished if he made a mistake. With time he slowly changed his attitude and rather than being overcautious to avoid making mistakes he attacked his assigned tasks wholeheartedly and did his best to keep working in what he felt was the right direction until he had either accomplished it. Or made such a mess of things that either he or the monks had to put a stop to it.

One of the larger mistakes he had made was the morning he was put in charge of making the gruel for the monks’ morning meal. He was not working on this alone as preparing food for the more than eighty monks could not realistically be done by one person. He and four of the children had simply been pointed at the large pots and the ingredients and were then left on their own. It had seemed like they had plenty of time to prepare the food, but Keal had horribly underestimated how much longer it took to get the water to boil. After some difficulties getting the right amount of rice and, especially, salt for such a large portion he had eventually served not quite cooked, over salted gruel to the monks. Much to his surprise none of them had berated him and once the initial coughing because of the salty gruel had died out most of them had simply taken it with high spirits. A few of them had smilingly told him about what a mess they had made this and other things when they had been younger. One even laughed loudly as he told Keal about how the gruel he had once made had been more black than white and how that had earned him a terribly long lecture on black and white, right and wrong, light and darkness and so on with everything being described by making patterns in the burned food.

More weeks went by and things became a little more settled. His physical work was mainly split between working in the fields, which all the monks took turns doing, and being apprenticed to one of the monks who worked as carpenters. Keal had never thought much about it but a small city that could easily house a few hundred people was always in need of repairs. The foundation was solid stone and while it did require some maintenance it was nothing compared to what the woodwork required. And since no trees were growing near the monastery everything had to be backbreakingly transported up through the mountains. Since he was not a monk he never accompanied those who went down to the hills and bartered with one of the small villages that lay nearby. Sometimes, Keal was told, the monks would mainly barter for the right to chop down trees for themselves. At other times, if the villagers had wood to spare, they would buy finished planks from them. When he thought back on how his own trek through the mountains had been he was grateful he was not on these trips. The trip through the mountains had been hard enough without having to carry lumber or planks.

One day, as he and the carpenter monk was carving a new flagpole to replace one that had broken in a strong wind, they talked about how valuable the wood they had in their hands really was to them. The monk taught him to respect the wood and those who carried it to the monastery by using a technique Keal had noticed that all of them seemed to use. Instead of directly telling him he should be grateful for the had work of others the monk simply asked guiding questions such as which pieces of wood Keal would use for which projects, whether this little piece could be turned into other than firewood and so on. Since Keal was still new to carpentry most of his attention was on the physical part of his work and so he simply answered the monk’s question without thinking too hard about it. This suited him very well as he had earlier noticed that this way of answering questions often led to him speaking his mind rather than guessing at what the right answer might be. It also gave him a lot of things to think about in his breaks or in the evening when he let the day’s discussions play out in his head.

Another thing that surprised him was that he also enjoyed learning to read and write and do simple calculations properly. He had learned the basics from Fredíc since the old man had, reluctantly, relied on Keal to bring various books and jars for him or run off to buy small things from time to time. It was not out of kindness or an interest in the boy’s future that Fredíc had taught him, it was simply to make his own life a little easier and he had gone to great lengths to tell Keal how stupid he had been and how he would never amount to anything in this world when there were more intelligent pigs than him.

The monks took a different approach and simply started with what Keal already knew and moved on from there. When they found out he did know a little about adding numbers they moved on to multiplication by having him return to the kitchen and cook up another portion of gruel, only this time they gave him the right proportions for one person and told him for figure out how much he needed for twenty. Through exercises like this he had slowly begun to figure out that instead of simply adding a single ration of rice twenty times he could add it ten times to a seperate bowl and then take that same amount again in one large scoop. After this his teachers had gone on to show him how to do these calculations more formally in the sand or on wax tablets. And from there they had moved on to even more complicated topics such as geometry where his carpentry skills had been applied and, indeed, improved by his theoretical knowledge.

Throughout all of this he still slept in his own room, an arrangement he had found out simply came from the monks not being able to figure out where else he should sleep. The children’s quarters seemed like a poor choice as his lessons often stretched far into the night and the monks’ quarters were completely out of the question as he was not a monk. Being thus kept apart from both the monks and the children Keal often felt like he did not really belong at the monastery. Everyone treated him far better than he had ever been treated before, yet none of them seemed to truly accept him as one of their own.

From time to time he would mention this to Nica who seemed to have become his unofficial mentor even after the first couple of days. She had really gone to great lengths to make his introduction to the monastery as pleasant and warm as possible. The first few days she had held back to allow him time to rest, but whenever he had found himself wondering about something she had always been nearby and ready to answer his questions. Of course, there were things, particularly about what happened at the meetings held only for monks, that she avoided answering. Upon reflection of this Keal found that he could not expect everything to be answered at once and with simple answers. And to be honest, he thought, it really did not mean all that much to him. There was plenty of other things to keep him busy.

With every day following a steady pattern the weeks eventually turned to months and soon the winter had passed and the air began to feel warmer as the sun stood higher and higher on the sky. His mornings and afternoons were still spent working while talking to at least one of the other monks and his evenings were crammed full of lessons. He had been glad to feel that the monks were pleased with his progress, not simply because he wanted to repay them for the kindness and openness they had shown him but also because he could really feel the progress himself. The more he learned the more he wanted to expand that knowledge and delve further and further into this world of books and thinking that he had never known before.

On a warm spring day he and Nica took the afternoon off from the daily duties to take a walk in the valley. In addition to pointing out where the monks were attempting to start a small forest of their own she also wanted, quite simply, to show him how relaxing and beautiful their home could be.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” Keal said.

Nica nodded and kept walking while waiting for his question.

“I was thinking about the children here. It’s been more than half a year since I came here and yet I’ve not really spent any time with them more than the occasional sharing of a task. Why is that?”

When Nica did not immediately answer he quickly stopped her from giving him the one answer he was beginning to be tired of.

“And don’t ask me why I think that is,” he said.

At this Nica smiled and stopped to sit down on a boulder. She gestured for Keal to sit next to her so he did.

“Well, you did put us in an unfamiliar situation. You know that you are far older by the children who have not yet been initiated. And those monks who are younger than you, well, as you know you have spent time with them. You must understand that the children here have had a very different childhood than yours. It’s not that we can decide which was better, yours or theirs. But, and I probably should not tell you this, there is a very specific plan for how we teach the children. Almost nothing we teach them or ask them to do are random. Everything must follow the pattern that will open them to the Supreme in the best way possible.”

“And the tasks you’ve given me?”

“Ah,” Nica said, “yes. Your tasks have been chosen, erm, according to a pattern that I don’t think any of us really know. In the beginning we simply wanted to get to know both you and your skills. That’s why it took some time before we placed you with one of the carpenters. The same goes for not only your lessons but also the discussions we’ve had far too late in the evening.”

Keal smiled as he remembered how he had spent many nights in the company of some of the monks, or just alone with Nica, talking about everything. The monks had seemed as interested in simple details from his life with the tribe as he had been in theirs.

“Yes,” he said, “I guess that makes sense. Does it make sense that I sometimes feel I know more about the rest of the world than you do?”

“It makes a lot of sense. Only very few of us ever leave the monastery and those who do rarely, if ever, actually live in the outside world. Most just travel the roads talking a little with those we meet. In this way you’re truly unique. Oh, don’t look so surprised. Remember, you’re talking to a, what was it, a bunch of withered old farts who wouldn’t know what a pig was if it sliced itself right on our plates?”

At the memory of how frustrated he had been one of the first evenings when the monks kept battering him with questions about mundane things Keal’s cheeks turned crimson. He mumbled some unheard apology, but Nica only laughed heartily.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “the only thing that got hurt, I think, was brother Rhic’s ego. She’s alway taken our duties to the Supreme extremely serious so she probably had a hard time dealing with how you can so easily tell the stories about all the other gods.”

“Yeah, well…”

For a few moments Keal sat and stared the mountains. They were bathed in golden sunlight and the small flowers and heather growing on their sides had turned the lower slopes a rich green rather than the dull grey they had been during winter.

As he looked around his eyes spotted movement some way from where they were sitting. It appeared to be a single figure walking slowly and labourishly down the side of the mountain. This struck Keal as odd since he had so far not heard about any of the monks working or travelling in that direction. Turning his head he saw that Nica’s attention was elsewhere and, feeling curious, he decided to keep an eye on the figure while they kept talking. The topic of the other gods was always interesting to Keal not only because of his meeting with Jinx, but also because they had been a fundamental part of his life before joining the monastery.

“Yes,” he said, “the gods and the stories about them is something that seems to upset a lot of the other monks. Not you, though. Why is that? Surely you share the same belief as the others that the gods are